I didn’t bother reaching for my spear. Its cold weight in my shoulder holster was gone. He’d somehow lifted it from me the moment he’d appeared. If I’d known how quickly he would show up, I’d have held on to it, to see if that stopped him. I made a mental note to try it next time.

“Fae,” I returned the salutation, if it could be called that, dryly. How had I ended up in a world with such strange methods of address? Of all the men I’d met in Dublin, only Christian called me Mac. “Give me my spear back.” I knew he wouldn’t but it didn’t stop me from asking.

“I do not come to you armed with lethal human weapons.” V’lane was in full Fae mode: glittering a dozen shades of alien, his iridescent eyes dispassionate with a thousand-yard stare, dripping heart-stoppingly incredible sex. Literally.

“You are a lethal human weapon.”

His gaze said There is that, and so it should be. “Why have you called me?” He looked impatient, as if I’d interrupted him in the middle of something important.

“How badly do you want the Book for your queen?”

“If you have found it and think to hold out on me . . .”

I shook my head. “Not holding out. But everyone wants my help finding it, and I’m not sure who’s the strongest, or who will help me the most. There are things I want, too.”

“You question my power?” His eyes blazed the silver of sharp knives, and I had a sudden, strange vision—the tatters of a genetic memory?—of a Fae flaying a human’s skin from his body with a glance. If they catch you, bow your head before them, we’d taught our children, and never look into their eyes. Not because we’d been afraid they might be mesmerized—a Fae didn’t need to make eye contact to do that—but because if our children were going to die horribly, we didn’t want them to see their fate glinting in those sharp, inhuman eyes.

“Why did you leave when Barrons showed up?” I asked.

“I despise him.”

“Why?”

“It is not your concern. Are you such a fool that you think to summon me to interrogate me?”

I shivered in my light sweater and jacket. The temperature had just dropped sharply. Fae royalty are so powerful that their pleasure or displeasure affects the weather, if they allow it. I’d recently learned that the Unseelie Hunters, with their great leathery wings, forked tongues, and fiery eyes, command this power, too. “I called you because I need your help. I’m just wondering if you can do what I need you to do.”

“I will keep you alive. And I will not let you . . . what is it you disliked so greatly when you couldn’t summon me before? Ah, you said you suffered horribly. I will not permit that.”

“That’s not enough. I need you to keep everyone alive tonight, and not let anyone suffer horribly. And I need to know you won’t return here one day and hurt them in the future.” Sidhe-seers had been hiding from the Fae for thousands of years, and I was about to take one of the most powerful straight into their hidden lair. Would I be branded traitor? Cast out? Oh, duh, I already was. Those who should have been my allies in this battle were now gunning for me, thanks to Rowena. I wouldn’t have to do this if she hadn’t pushed me so far.

His alien eyes narrowed and he glanced around. Then he laughed.

I caught myself pulling my sweater up, smiling vapidly. My breasts ached and my nipples throbbed. “Turn it off,” I growled. “We have a deal, remember? You said you would turn it off around me all the time.”

He shimmered and was once again the man I’d seen the night before, in jeans, boots, and biker jacket. “I forgot.” There was neither truth nor contrition in his words. “You are going to the abbey.”

“Crimeny,” I exploded, “does everyone know everything but me?” I consoled myself with the thought that at least now I didn’t have to feel bad about betraying their location to V’lane. He already knew it.

“It would seem so. You are young. Your minuscule time is a yawn in my life.” He paused then added, “And Barrons’.”

“What do you know about Barrons?” I demanded.

“That you would be far wiser to depend on me, MacKayla.” He moved toward me and I stepped back. Even in his muted, humanlike form, he was pure sex. He glided past me, stopped at the Viper, and traced his hand over the sleek metallic curve of the hood. V’lane standing next to a black-on-black Viper was a thing to see.

“I want you to go to the abbey with me,” I told him. “As backup. I want you to be my protection. You will not harm any of the sidhe-seers there.”